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The Hidden Costs of Microsoft's Free Office Online
Michael_Curator writes "Despite what you've heard, the online version of Office 2010 announced by Microsoft earlier this week won't be free to corporate users. Business customers will either have to pay a subscription fee or purchase corporate access licenses (CALs) for Office in order to be given access to the online application suite (Microsoft already does this with email — the infamous Outlook Web Access). But wait — there's more! A Microsoft spokesperson told me that customers will need to buy a SharePoint server, which ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000 with all CALs included, if they want to share documents created using the online version of Office 2010."
you need the server to run the apps inhouse rather than out of your control. The same is true of things like google docs and other cloud apps. either you run it on their servers and gove third parties access to your data or you pay to run it on your servers. this is not a surprise or even unreasonable.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
No MS hardware involved. "A sharepoint server" is just your basic x86 server from anybody running a particular set of MS software.
It's nothing compared to the cost of hiring a team of people to get sharepoint to do what you want it to do, and plenty of companies are happy to pay for them. It's also cheap on a per-user basis - remember how many tens of thousands you are paying them each year - not that this logic extends to buying them a decent computer.
Some software just works. Other software unnecessarily requires over the top maintenance and setup costs. I've never read anything good about sharepoint apart from the people who got wooed by the salesman over golf/dinner/piss up to buy it. Sadly these people are who controls decision making.
What's a good free sharepoint alternative, in a single package?
Cloud computing is a bad idea.
Isn't that kind of a sweeping statement? Might it not be a good idea for some people?
It gives software companies an unprecedented level of control over our data.
It rather depends what you put on there and what kind of business you are, doesn't it? It also depends on your backup strategy. If they up the price of their service, you can migrate away. If they shut it off completely with no warning... well, you were keeping backups, right?
I would not endow them with this level of trust
Who's talking about trust? You use their service and you keep backups. You don't "trust" anyone.
If you are looking for an alternative, might I suggest http://www.openoffice.org/ [openoffice.org]
Please tell me that your whole post wasn't just a plug for a free office suite that everyone on Slashdot is already aware of?
Anyway, other than saving a few hundred bucks per seat, OpenOffice isn't a "solution". It still requires more support compared to letting Google/MS be your IT department.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
SharePoint (not 2010, i mean the current version) actually works well with Firefox. I have yet to noticed any different when browsing it with Firefox/IE7.
...priceless.
For everything else, there's Microsoft.
I can't ever see myself storing my personal documents, especially financial ones, on some remote server or "cloud". Fuck that. Take your orafice online and stick it.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
And the source of this important information on pricing of an unreleased product? ...
A Microsoft spokesperson told me
Microsoft spokespersons with the knowledge and authority to speak about such things have a name and title.
"People" don't pay it, businesses do. It just shows how clueless you are about software costs in the Enterprise. I guess you just assume that since you can download a copy of XP or Vista Enterprise off of a torrent it must be "cheap". Check into pricing for ANY of the major Enterprise apps, 41,000 for all of the CALs isn't shit.
Google has paid services too with similar pricing models. While there is a free "Google for domains" that gives you docs, etc, on your domain, there are additional paid tiers of support.
It still requires more support compared to letting Google/MS be your IT department.
I believe you just made my point for me. Letting Google or Microsoft be your IT department is dangerous because they have a vested interest in the decisions your IT department makes.
Excuse for why is your room always messy?
SP works with Firefox at a basic level. Any of the higher level functionality (editing in place, slide libraries, checkout/in, etc.) needs IE, ActiveX, and Office.
The real name for SharePoint is Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. It's an online extension of the Office suite.
Of course much of it is inertia, but the license fees for Windows and Office in even a semi-professional setting are not 'high'. Say that the average license refresh cycle is 3 years (this is not absurd, in either direction). In that time period, the other salary and overhead for a cheap individual is going to exceed $150,000, so the (perhaps as much as but probably less than) $1,500 for software licensing is not a huge increase.
$500 a year of savings is still $500 of savings, but it sets a pretty low bar for how disruptive something can be and still be worth it.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Wow! Microsoft is selling its software! Be still my heart!
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
A Microsoft spokesperson told me that customers will need to buy a SharePoint server, which ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000 with all CALs included, if they want to share documents created using the online version of Office 2010."
I am so happy to be working in an office free of the MS strangle hold. CALs always struck me as the most insidious of their macabre licensing circus. First you pay for the software, then you pay again so people can use it. What a racket. For the $41,000 you're paying in CALs I can cover an employee salary for 8 months (that would be one of the lower level people).
We don't have any problems getting our work done at the office without Microsoft. We have corporate Gmail and use GoogleDocs, so far with zero problems. If we have super sekret corporate information we can't trust to Google, we can store them in the truecrypt file container. We can send out pdf's to clients and customers, everyone can read them and they format just fine.
Plus I really like that we don't have to fit either our business processes or development processes to MSFT models. It's a lot more open and a lot more productive. You don't realize how much time you spend dancing on Microsoft's string until you get away from them. And, as an extra bonus, I can blow your ROI and TCO numbers out of the water. Just about any metric you want to use. And I never have to make the painful choice between layoffs and new servers. We can upgrade on our schedule, patch on our schedule, work the way we want to. If we need more capacity, we just stand it up. If we don't need it we can turn it off and it's not wasted money sitting there doing nothing.
And it's not just a small office. If you set it up right, you could do the same thing with almost any size organization. The only consistent pain in the rear problem we have regularly are those damn webinar programs. GoToMeeting and crap like that. Many of those are Windows only. That's kind of annoying.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage